Family Vacation, part 1

I decided that while my husband was deployed, I was going to save up and we were going to take the kids to Disney.  I didn't really know what to expect.  I never went as a child, and only went with my work one time a few years back and got about 6 hours to explore the 4 parks!  It was a little bit overwhelming to plan this trip.  And then, if that wasn't enough, the resort we were staying at is a test pilot for the new Magic Band +...a wrist band that helps you organize your life at disney.  A wrist band you wear that has your meal plan, door key, credit card and fast pass and a ton of other info on it, and you just swipe your wrist band instead of a ticket and a key and a credit card.  It is quite convienient, however, with never going to disney and having access to set up my fast pass up to 60 days before I get there, I had no clue what to do!  We just set it up when we got there and it all work out.  And once I looked at the maps and got a basic game plan down, we were good to go.  We did a meal plan, the quick service--2 meals and 1 snack/person/day, and that was plenty of food, and we didn't need reservations for any meals.  My kids climb under the table still, so I didn't wan to be that family at disney, so we lived off of pizza, pasta and burgers while we were there.  Before I get into the parks in successive blogs, I am going to chat a bit about the resort we were in.  We were in the new Art of Animation resort.  It just opened up a year ago.  We stayed in the 'Cars' section, complete with Cozy Cone pool.  Disney does it right, you felt like you were staying in Radiator springs along with all of your Cars friends.  There were 4 movie areas to live in Cars, Nemo, Little Mermaid and Lion King.  While we only got photos of the outside of the others, I can only imagine the magic Disney worked to create an awesome living space while there.  Here are a few fun pics of our resort.  Yes, I feel the resort should gets it own post!   Once you see the pictures, you will understand why.   We stayed at the Wheel Well Hotel.  It was pretty cool.  It was a great week.  I will add a blog for each park and some of our memorable moments of those parks.